October 23, 2018

Red Planet Mars

I finally got a glimpse of red Mars, low in the Southern sky and trailing the Teapot. Sky-watching isn't easy here in Athens, Georgia; too much light pollution and haze.

Not like South Texas where I grew up. Plenty of the heavens to see and I loved it. Mars fascinated me. All those Edgar Rice Burroughs novels: "A Princess of Mars," and so forth. Those were the years of Percival Lowell, too, and his big refractor telescope at Flagstaff. He convinced me - there were canals on Mars, made by other-worldly people. I'm kinda sorry that didn't work out.

Mom listened to the H. G. Wells program about invaders from Mars. She wasn't one of those who thought it was real news.

The fictional Mars is back now, in the trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. "Red Mars, Blue Mars, Green Mars." I truly enjoyed those books. Sci-fi at its best.

And now NASA is getting ready to go to Mars. What will they find? Nothing they didn't already know, is my guess. But the internet will have fun with fake news.

Dac Crossley
October 22, 2018

"We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason." - Edwin R Murrow. Are you listening, my friends?